Car accident left me with unpaid broken eye glasses

by Bob

In a recent accident my sons eye glasses were broken (which is almost insignificant compared to his injuries) but when i asked our insurance agent about replacing them he told me that his glasses are not coverer by the car insurance (we have full coverage) but rather his glasses are covered by our homeowners coverage and we would have to satisfy the deductible before the glasses would be covered.

my question is does my auto insurance cover his eye glasses that were damaged in the accident and is my agent giving me the run around to get more money ?

Answer:

Hi Bob,

I am sorry for the delay. I was giving this some consideration. It is sad that insurance companies and agents get "around" things like paying for glasses when you clearly pay insurance for this type of thing.

Let's take a look at the policy. Most auto insurance policies exclude "personal property" from their coverage. They want you to buy home owners or renters insurance for that. The auto policy is only supposed to cover damages to the auto or for injuries. The insurance company will argue that the glasses are personal property per the terms of the policy.

There are couple of things you need to look at. 1. what does the policy say about this specifically under the medical payment or personal injury protection portion of the policy.

It can be argue that glasses are prescription equipment and they are "medical" equipment. You need this type of thing to see. The insurance company can basically claim that you hearing aids, and more intrusive equipment is also personal property, but the claim gets more and more devious.

The bottom line here is that the glasses could be considered personal property. In which case they would probably excluded from the policy.

In your message, you say your insurance agent, I am not sure if you are dealing with an "insurance adjuster" or an agent that sold you the policy. If you are dealing with an adjuster, then you need to have them put this on writing where they show you the policy language that excludes prescription glasses from this accident.

The second thing I want to point out is the following. You did not say whether your son was driving the vehicle or he was a passenger, and whether this was a single vehicle accident or someone other vehicle was at fault. This matters.

If you are driving (or someone else), they crash the vehicle and your son is a passenger, then that person is at fault for the accident (assuming that your son did nothing to add to this accident and that no other at-fault vehicle is involved in this accident).

If this is the case, then the driver is liable for all of your son damages. If you were the driver, then the insurance company must likely have to pay for his glasses under the liability coverage because you are liable to him.


I hope this clear up some confusion.

Good Luck
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